Doubt & Depression: The Creative Journey

Some days the anxiety & overwhelm come after my morning coffee or on the drive back home at night, but the hardest days are when I open my eyes and can feel them already there.

As a creative entrepreneur in a world that all too often makes creativity and owning your own business look like the most blissful journey, it’s important to me to tell another story.

I’ve had many highs and many lows in the past few years and feel the need for a more honest perspective regarding doubt & depression in the creative journey.

Creative work – discussing literature with students, curating Carolinian artists, or working on my own personal practice – fulfills me more than anything else I do, but I relentlessly struggle with being able to separate my self-worth & what I create or deem as “success.” You can’t see this struggle just looking at me; it’s buried deep beneath the ambition to keep going day after day, beneath beautifully curated Instagram photos, beneath the surface. And what are the habits to re-write this message? Less work, more space – less pressure, more grace??? It is an ever-evolving process that I know many creatives wrestle with: it’s soul worth; it’s life work; it’s the hardest work.

If you often experience similar feelings, just know that you are not alone.

I take solace in these words from Nayyirah Waheed today & hope they reach you as well:

“To make alive what is quiet and asleep in your existence. To do that work. To find yourself. Inside yourself. That is art…”

And in the desire to open space for more conversations around mental health, the creative journey, and self-care, I encourage you to join us for Tinctures + Herbs for Mental Wellness with Torches Ceremonial this week at Covet.